Trump Eyes Greenland, Cuba, Colombia After Venezuela Attack

Welcome back to Foreign policyOur Status Report, First Edition of 2026. We hope you had a relaxing holiday, considering we’ve already had at least a month’s worth of news in just the first week of January.

On that note, here’s what’s on offer for today: Trump He wants to convert US Army To his personal global enforcers, Protests The system was shaken in Iranand Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Gain prominence in the United States lawyer.

If 2025 is a norm-breaking year in terms of how the US military is employed (as we’ve covered in numerous newsletters), we’re already looking at a possible repeal of these standards just days after 2026.

So far this year, US President Donald Trump has used the military to arrest Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro after months of strikes on alleged drug boats off the country’s coast, and has since considered similar measures against Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Iran and Greenland.

In case you missed it, he also authorized an airstrike on ISIS fighters in Nigeria last month, citing their alleged targeting of Christians in the country, though details of those claims and the strikes themselves were scant. Experts stressed that although there is a problem of deadly extremist jihadist violence in Nigeria, it is often indiscriminate and affects people across religious lines.

Trump’s 2024 campaign promise of “no new wars” has been repeatedly denied, and the US president is now calling for a much larger war chest.

“I have decided that for the good of our country, especially in these very turbulent and dangerous times, our 2027 military budget should not be $1 trillion, but $1.5 trillion,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. “This will allow us to build the ‘dream army’ that we have long deserved, and most importantly, it will keep us safe regardless of the enemy,” he added.

Imagined threats Many of Trump’s justifications for his military actions have been based on flimsy evidence or embellished assertions — especially when it comes to Venezuela. The Trump administration has described the country as a major source of deadly drugs trafficked in the United States, but leading experts strongly disagree. Most of the drugs of concern to the United States, such as cocaine and fentanyl, are produced in other countries and move overland across the US border through Mexico.

While many agree with the administration’s claims that Maduro was an illegitimate and corrupt leader, the Trump administration has also not provided compelling evidence to support the idea that he is a “narco-terrorist.” In a significant development, in its legal case against Maduro, the administration has already dropped its repeated claims that he heads the “Cartel de los Soles,” which experts said is a slang term for corrupt officials in Venezuela who accepted drug money rather than an actual organization.

Republican reins. Congress has so far largely avoided any checks and balances on Trump’s use of the military. But that changed slightly in the Senate on Thursday, which voted to advance a war powers resolution introduced by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine to prevent Trump from taking further military action in Venezuela without first getting authorization from Congress.

The resolution – on which five Republican senators joined Democrats – must still pass the full Senate, faces an uncertain path in the House, and could ultimately be vetoed by Trump. But it was a shot in the crosshairs for Trump from lawmakers in his party. Trump posted on Truth Social that “Republicans should be ashamed” of the five senators who voted for the resolution, adding that those senators “should never be elected to office again.”

Even as more Republican lawmakers begin to waver in their support for Trump’s military ambitions, the little opposition in Congress and pressure against the administration is likely to turn into a deluge if Democrats take control of the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections. It’s a possibility Trump is well aware of, telling Republicans on Tuesday that he would be “impeached” if they lost the midterms.

However, we still have nearly a year to hold the election, giving Trump several more months to escalate US military intervention around the world. Given what we saw in the first week of 2026, it has become abundantly clear that no country can ignore Trump’s threat to use military force — no matter how outlandish that threat may be.

Barry Pollack, an experienced lawyer who previously represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, will represent Maduro in the criminal case brought against him by the US Department of Justice, according to court filings.

The Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C. — which long served as the FBI’s headquarters until the agency’s current director, Kash Patel, moved it nearby last year — will now “permanently close,” Patel confirmed in a post on X.

What should be on your radar, if it isn’t already.

“Hostile rhetoric.” Dozens have been killed in Iran in recent days amid anti-government protests sparked by frustrations over the country’s faltering economy. The demonstrations, which are said to have spread to more than 100 cities and towns across Iran, have been met with a violent crackdown by security forces.

The Iranian economy is suffering under the weight of stifling sanctions linked to tensions with the West. These sanctions were tightened following the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, which culminated in US strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites. The protests began in late December as the Iranian rial fell to a record low against the US dollar.

Trump threatened to intervene if more protesters were killed, warning Iran that it could be hit “severely” by the United States. But US intervention could backfire and exacerbate the government’s crackdown while endangering US forces in the region. In an apparent warning to the United States and Israel, which have also expressed support for the protests, Iran’s army chief said on Wednesday that the country would respond to “hostile rhetoric.”

Security guarantees for Ukraine Kiev insists that it needs security guarantees from the United States and Europe to deter any future Russian aggression before signing any peace agreement with Moscow. Progress has been made on this front in recent days, but much remains up in the air.

A coalition of Ukraine’s allies met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US representatives in Paris this week to discuss the matter, issuing a statement saying the coalition is “ready to adhere to a system of politically and legally binding guarantees that will be activated once the ceasefire enters into force.” France and the United Kingdom also signed a declaration of intent to deploy French and British forces on the ground in Ukraine after the ceasefire. Although the United States did not sign the coalition statement, it provided verbal support for security guarantees from the coalition.

Zelensky also said on Thursday that a bilateral document on security guarantees for Ukraine is now ready to be finalized with Trump. But in a further sign of how difficult it will be to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides in the war, Russia has already thrown cold water on the idea of ​​deploying Western forces in Ukraine – warning that it would view such forces as a “threat” and therefore legitimate combat targets.

SitRep spoke with Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff on Thursday after the vote on the war powers resolution he sponsored with Kaine. Schiff said he was surprised that “the vote margin was as strong as it was” but that support for limiting Trump’s war powers grew among Republicans “as the use of military force continued to escalate” and the scope of the administration’s goals in Venezuela became clearer.

“This began ostensibly as a military campaign against boats that were trafficking drugs,” Schiff said. “This does not seem to be a plausible explanation for the massive buildup of military capabilities in the Caribbean.” “It is clear that this was about oil from the beginning. If this had been a law enforcement operation, as they claim, designed solely to support the military in bringing fugitive Nicolas Maduro to justice – that would have been the end of the matter when it appeared in the courtroom. But that is clearly not the case.”

Friday 9 January: The US Supreme Court is expected to rule on Trump’s authority to impose tariffs.

Sunday 11 January: Parliamentary elections are scheduled to begin in Benin.

The second phase of Myanmar’s controversial general elections is set to take place.

Tuesday 13 January: The World Future Energy Summit is scheduled to start in Abu Dhabi.

The Venezuelan Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that more than 100 people were killed in the US raid on the country that led to Maduro’s arrest. Cuba also said that 32 of its citizens, who were in Venezuela on behalf of the Cuban Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, were killed during the operation.

At least seven American soldiers were wounded, but none were killed, and five recovered and returned to duty.

“I feel like we have high school kids playing risk“.

– Republican Rep. Don Bacon regarding the Trump administration’s threats toward Greenland, calling the administration’s approach “amateur.”

Check out Turtle Bay’s John reporting this week on the identity crisis and UN impotence in the wake of Trump’s strikes in Venezuela as the world body tries to deal with brazen unilateral military action by its biggest funder and most powerful members.

You should also read Rishi’s article about the US withdrawal from global cyber defense at a time when global digital networks are more vulnerable to disruption, leaving other countries concerned about how to fill this gap. It’s part of the cover of the latest issue of FP magazine released this week, which looks more broadly at the emergence of a post-American order.